Cardboard House Questions...

We bought the cardboard house at Costco. I'm not sure if they still have them or not (probably not), but here's a website I found printed on the side of the box: www.colormehouse.com. Apparently they have the house we got, a rocket, and a castle. Here's a couple more views of the house...and the windows open up, as do some little window vents in the roof, etc. It's really neat. I'm pretty sure the price was less than $15. (I just peeked at the website and you can click on where you live and it will show you where you can find a place that sells them. Cool!)

Christmas 2009, part II

Santa brought Jase the coolest cardboard house. It's awesome! It has a pitched roof, windows, stars, mailbox, doorbell, etc. Roob and I started coloring on it. Roob drew on shingles and window frames, and I did the mailbox and put his name on it. It was darling. He played in it forever on Christmas morning. And it was a very price efficient gift. My favorite was the warning on the box that said "keep away from fires and open flames." Check. Ha ha.Jase playing in his coolio cardboard house!
One of Roob's most favorite things to eat are the LDS cannery's potato pearls (dried buttery potato bits). You just add water (they are pretty dang good). Anyways, my mom gave Roob a big box of them for Christmas. We all cracked up. Just look how proud he is of them...
Grandma Jenith and Jase warmin' up by the fire.
Jase and Hibbin playing with their toys. They were in toy heaven. And very overstimulated, I might add!

Christmas 2009 at Grandma's House

Santa did not disappoint this year! First we had Christmas at our house with Jase (pics to come), then we drove to my mom's for Christmas with my brothers & my nephew. We had so much fun opening presents! Jase and Hibbin were hilarious. They had so much to open that they finally just got sick of opening gifts. LOL. Then Gma Jenith spoiled us with a delicious Honeybaked Spiral Ham! OOH AHH. I am still drooling thinking about it. Anyways, here's a pic of my brothers--Michael is on the left, and Nathan on the right. I'm the oldest bc I am the coolest, then Mike, then Nate.Here's Michael, Hibbin (Nathan's son), and Nathan just hanging out on the sofa.
Jase and me, Nathan and Hibbin. Hibb is only 4 weeks older than Jase, and he's my very first nephew on our side of the family!
There's the lovely Grandma Jenith with her only daughter!
Gma Jenith, Michael, and Nathan hammin' it up for the camera. Cute pic!

Children Come in Handy!

I got this awesome hand-held Shark vacuum from Santa this year. I'm already finding plenty of ways to use it!!!

3D Ultrasound Pics: It's a _____???

We finally had our 3D ultrasound appointment! I was soooo nervous to find out what we were having. For those of you who are ultrasound challenged like I am, I drew on the pictures to point out exactly what you're looking at. It helps me, too, bc I swear if I stare at these long enough I can't make out a darned thing. Ok let's get started...here's the baby's sweet little face...Here's another one. The baby was curled up into a neat little ball the entire time (shocking, I know).
And finally...it's a BOY!!! (sorry about this picture, little son. it's quite graphic! lol) So there was NO mistaking it this time (as you can see for yourself). Hee hee.
I have to say my initial reaction was "that's what I thought." I was so convinced it was a girl until my previous doctor's appointment. Ever since then I have been thinking that it was probably a boy. I think this is God's way of saying, "Amiee, you are going to have 3 children even though you thought you'd only have two." Heh heh. I know it's a bit too early to be thinking about that, but it's just a feeling I've got. Anyways, we initially wanted a girl (I'd like to have at least one boy and one girl) but now we're excited about another boy! I think it will be GREAT for Jase to have a brother close in age, too. Plus the boys will have to share a room (which is already boyish-bonus!) and we pretty much already have everything we need from Jase (poor kid will get a lot of hand-me-downs). :) Well, I guess anything that hasn't been worn out or spit up on a hundred times. Ha ha ha.

Now I've just been collecting a bunch of possible boy names and keeping a list on my computer. There are lots of good ones to choose from. I want something that sounds good with our last name, but also something that sounds good with Jase (bc you know you will always be saying your kids' names together). So here's a few on the list: Rowan, Cody, Cole, Jack, Jesse, Liam, Drew, Lane, Ian (I really like Rhees, but Reuben has completely vetoed it. Lame.)

24 weeks Pregnant with Baby #2

So I've made it to 24 weeks! Hooray! I had my 3D ultrasound last Monday, and everything looks good with baby! I am planning on scanning in those 3D pics as soon as I can get on the scanner and do it. LOL. Speaking of that--stay tuned to find out what we're having!!! (post coming soon)Here's another close-up pic of the growing tummy!
Here's just a random but cute picture of Jase standing by our Christmas tree this year.

Good Thing My MIL doesn't Check this Blog

Last Saturday we had a Christmas party for my husband's side of the family. It was so much fun! I always forget how gigantic his family is (and lots of people were still missing)! Anyways, we had a great white elephant gift exchange. One of those items was one of Grandma Connie's wigs. Hee hee. We couldn't get enough of it. Here's a pic of Lecia & Kurt (Kurt's sporting the wig). Too funny!
Of course I had to try it on, too. I think I am rockin' it like Joe Dirt--mullet style!
Couldn't let the moment pass me by to get Jase to wear it. Well at least now I know what Jase would've looked like if he were a girl! Heh heh. Anyways, he HATED wearing it, so I barely snapped a few pics before he freaked out and took it off. I was laughing so hard! It was so totally worth it.
Roob had this great idea to see how many of us we could fit into the small kitchen! I thought this picture was great. We were all cracking up! You can see me in the back over to the left...
Alrighty, so back to the white elephant gifts. A couple of weeks ago Grandma Connie & Granpa Larry rode with us to Gordon's baptism. On the way back G.Connie took a snooze...Roob said "take a pic" so I snuck one. Later on the genius idea came to turn the picture into a shirt for the white elephant gift exchange. Classic. I photoshopped it and Roob ironed it onto the shirt. Connie was SUCH a good sport about it. We were all DYING laughing over it. I think the shirt got stolen/traded about 7 times! And I believe Lecia ended up taking it home! Here it is:
I had my video camera ready to capture the moment as soon as somebody picked our present. Julie picked it first! But as my luck would have it, after only a few seconds of video, I ran out of memory card space! GAH! (knew I should have deleted some files off of it) Oh well, at least I got some footage of it! HEE HEE

Moose Munch

Have any of you ever been to Harry & David's? It's a fancy store that sells all kinds of chocolates, gourmet nuts, etc. They have this butter toffee popcorn that comes in all sorts of varieties called Moose Munch. It's one of my favorite treats of all time. However, one teeny weeny bag will cost you about $8.00! So, this year I set out to try to recreate their recipe on my own. I think I got it REALLY close--but it took a couple tries. On my first try I burned all the caramel corn, including the cashews and almonds. *sigh* It took me 2 days to get over my frustration, but I tried it all over again today. Success! It's delicious! I'm planning on giving away some as soon as it all cools off and I can package it up. I started with the caramel corn recipe from OurBestBites.com, but I have to say that when I followed their baking directions, that is how mine got burned. I'm assuming it's due to the higher altitude where I live. So here's how I adapted their recipe to suit my ambitious copycat of Moose Munch:

16 C popped popcorn (about 1 C. kernels--i just popped mine in oil in a pot on the stove)
1.5 C brown sugar
1/4 c + 1/8 c white Karo syrup
1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp salt (if you are using salted microwave popcorn then omit salt here)
1.5 sticks of real butter
1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp (would this be 3/4tsp? oh man) baking soda
1.5 tsp vanilla

cashew halves, salted
roasted almonds, salted
really good quality semi-sweet chocolate (please don't use Nestle's/hersheys! blech!)
half a bag of toffee chips

Pop popcorn and set aside. Place brown sugar, Karo syrup, salt, and butter in a microwave safe dish. I cut up the butter into chunks so it melts better. Microwave for 30-45 seconds. That should be enough to melt the butter at least half way. Stir it all to combine. Now microwave on high for 2 minutes. Take it out and stir. Microwave for 2 more minutes.

Then add the baking soda & vanilla. It will foam a bit, that's normal. Pour all over popcorn and toss well, leaving a little bit of the caramel to toss your nuts in. I recommend finding the biggest bowl you can find. I bought a HUGE one at Smith & Edwards (it rocks). If you don't have a big bowl--good luck to you. Ha ha ha. After that, pour popcorn into two greased jelly roll pans (cookie sheets with about 1.5" sides on it). Spread it out as best you can. Then quickly toss your cashews and almonds into the remaining caramel you left in the bowl. Just eyeball it. Then take a spoon and drop the gooey nuts all over the popcorn that is already sitting in your cookie sheets. Bake one sheet at a time at 250 for about 26 minutes. If you live in a lower elevation, you might want to try what ourbestbites recommends for cooking times, but that is what burned my popcorn in the first place. As soon as you remove the popcorn from the oven, sprinkle toffee chips all over it and toss well. Let cool until nice and crunchy. Then drizzle as much chocolate on your popcorn as you'd like. My chocolate was a tad on the "dark" side, so I did one sheet with a TON of chocolate on it, and mixed it with the other sheet that had hardly any chocolate on it so it wouldn't be too rich. Wait until your chocolate has completely cooled before you do any mixing or packing! Enjoy!!

Fun Things

Reuben: "Jase, what do you want to do that's fun today?"
Jase: "Uh...eat breakfast...and dinner!"

Ha ha ha!!!! I am still cracking up over this.

Easy Candy Turtles

These are so easy & cute, you must make them asap! I had to do a lovely cross-section so you could see the candy in all it's glory. MMM.Here's a pic of what they look like "un-cut." I did some with red or green M&M's (for the nut haters) and the others have pecan halves pushed into them.
Here's the recipe. I found it on OurBestBites.com.

small pretzels
Rolo candies - one bag has about 55 candies (I bought mine in bulk from Sam's Club)
Pecan halves - or optionally peanuts, cashews and m&m's
Optional: almond bark or white chocolate for drizzling

This is easy as can be! Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place pretzels on a parchment lined baking sheet. I like to use parchment paper for easy handling, but you can also put them on foil, a silpat, or directly onto the cookie sheet.

Unwrap your Rolo candies and place one on top of each pretzel like a cute little hat. Place pan in the oven for 3-4 minutes. Any longer is probably too long. You just want the chocolate on the outside to look glossy and melty, but they should still hold their shape.

Remove pan from oven and take a pecan and gently press it right into the center of the chocolate candy. Ta-da! You're done! Unless you're like me...then you'll drizzle them all with some white chocolate...then I added some green christmas sprinkles on top of my pecan ones, just to Christmas 'em up a little bit (you can see it in my close up picture). Mine were done in 15 minutes from start to finish. But word to the wise--these are NOT very good to eat warm. Trust me. They are MUCH better once they've completely cooled off.

Maternity Skinny Jeans

Kind of sounds like an oxymoron, right? Ha ha ha. For those of you who don't know what skinny jeans are, they are basically a fitted jean with a fitted leg all the way down. Not boot cut, not flare, not straight. ALMOST looks like leggings (eeks!). So unless you are stick thin, they are NOT flattering to the hip/thigh area if you were to just wear them with normal shoes. However, with boots over them, they look super cute! Anyways, I purchased some from Motherhood Maternity (M.M.) yesterday. When I first came out of the dressing room and looked in the mirror I just kept laughing and laughing and WISHING I had my tall boots to help balance out the top-heavy figure with teeny tiny calves I saw staring back at me.

The reason why I wanted some is that I have these cute "Ugg" knockoff boots (yeah I'm cheap like that) that I want to wear OVER my jeans instead of underneath them. I tried tucking my regular jeans into the boots but that did NOT work. So I began searching. The only places I could find these was M.M. or Old Navy. Old Navy's seemed to have a better "wash" on them, but they were the low-rise fit and I wasn't sure if that would see me through another 3.5 months. So I went with the M.M. ones. They kind of have a ghetto fabulous wash on them--it's still dark, but it has some unsightly horizontal whiskering RIGHT on the THIGHS (uh...did they think this through?) and a bit of a stonewash feel to it--a'la 80's style. BUT, nevertheless, the need to wear the boots over my jeans won me over and I paid for 'em.

Today was day #1 of wearing them. First of all, they are tight. I mean, painted on. Since I only own like 2 pairs of jeans, I am not used to them being fitted. In fact, they fit "cute" for like 1 hour after washing, then stretch out and just sag/hang off of me after that. Very unattractive. So these skinny jeans are tight AND stretchy. LOL. But in a way that's probably a good thing for me! The other thing is that they have the full tummy panel, meaning, it is super stretchy and comes up to my ribcage. After wearing them all day I have learned 2 things--1.) I am CONSTANTLY pulling them up and the crotch is sagging down (but that is how MOST maternity pants are 2.) I could camp out in negative degree weather in these things. I wore them today with my sheepskin boots, a thermal fitted long sleeve tee and a brown wool short sleeve sweater over that. I was so hot in the shopping stores I wanted to cry! Ha ha ha. But anyways, I am still happy with the purchase, but I don't think I will wear these out shopping all day anymore...there is only so much I can take. But hey, I looked cute--right? No pain, no gain. :)

for Jenny

hi! just wanted to say thank you again for what you said to me tonight. that made my whole week!!!! luv ya!

the Sciatic Joint...dum dum dum!

So I am having a new experience with pregnancy #2. For the last few weeks my sciatic joint (the joint where your pelvis connects to the base of your spine) has been giving me more than my share of trouble. The pain (feels like electric voltage) varies off and on--but it seems like the last couple of days have been the worst. It's pretty difficult to squat, lean over, sit on the ground (trying to change diapers), pick up anything off the floor, and even walk! It's frustrating me bc it makes me just want to sit still and not do anything. However, I purchased a medela tummy support band that is supposed to help a bit. I wore it yesterday for a few hours, and as soon as I woke up today I put it back on. It does seem to be helping a bit (awesome). I guess there are 2 reasons for the joint pain--one is that when you're pregnant your body releases certain hormones that loosen these joints, but sometimes it loosens them a bit too much (my case). The other reason is that the baby could be positioned such that its putting more pressure on that area. So the belly support band is supposed to help alleviate this pressure by lifting the baby a bit. For $24.99, it was worth a shot! I am hoping this helps. Otherwise, I am planning to seek out some prenatal massage and possibly a prenatal chiropractor so I can function normally again.